


Head shot

by dimtraces



Series: The blue man [7]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: (sort of anyway), Child Soldiers, Force Ghost Anakin Skywalker, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gen, Jedi Finn, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-04
Updated: 2016-08-04
Packaged: 2018-07-29 09:17:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7678837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dimtraces/pseuds/dimtraces
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>FN-2187 is very good with a blaster.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Head shot

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings: Finn has a panic attack. Slightly gory visualisation of a shot to the head (not enough for a Graphic Descriptions of Violence warning, but your mileage may vary.) General disposable child soldier situation.

“Very impressive, little one,” the blue man comments, and this time FN-2187 doesn’t lose his concentration.

That’s the way it would have gone, usually. It’s not like he startles at every interruption or noise—FN-2187 is training to become a soldier, he cannot afford to be easily distracted, and so he isn’t. The drills are always loud with the deafening groans and whimpers of a dozen teenagers amplified into his head by the helmet, and Phasma shouting corrections, very occasionally at FN-2187 himself. The new simulation training sessions are frenetic and terrifying. Still, the blue man’s presence is enough to command a whole room’s attention—a whole deck, a whole _planet_ —and since FN-2187 is the only person actually capable of seeing him, all of that focus is on _him_. It’s so… solid. So it doesn’t matter that objectively, the blue man is usually very quiet. That’s how he’s been explaining it to himself, anyway, but apparently…

Apparently the presence isn’t just physical.

See: This time, FN-2187’s trying something new. He’s sneaked to one of the outside shooting ranges, for self-assigned extra blaster practice. It’s the deep of the night (hence why he was able to get out in the first place), and he’s keeping his eyes closed. For good measure, he’s also disconnected some cables in his helmet, leaving the visor black, to keep himself from cheating. It’s actually pretty easy to do and undo, now he knows how it works.

He’s running across the field, panting, zig-zagging, shooting targets, dodging targets—he hasn’t collided with anything yet, it must be working.

In a few minutes, he’ll reactivate the visor and check whether he’s actually hit anything.

For now, he’s _feeling_.

It’s an adaption of an old trick. If he can stretch his mind out and feel a droid, and lift it—what if instead he tries touching many things at once? It’s not that easy, but he’s been practicing, even occasionally around other people. (“Force-sensitive children are a valuable commodity,” the blue man had snarled, but making sure Kylo Ren isn’t there when he tries it counts as being careful, right?) Now, his consciousness is draped like a net over the grass and the trees and the humanoid shapes of the plasteel targets.

Ten minutes ago, his mind had also suddenly wrapped around the hardwarmcoldblindingbrittleguilty sun that is, apparently, the blue man.

That’s how he knew he was there.

Obviously, he hadn’t terminated his exercise then. Hadn’t even considered it, he notices. The blue man wouldn’t have wanted him to, anyway, he thinks, then: _I_ didn’t want to. Now, though… there are still 1.5 minutes to go, according to the plan he worked out in his head, but he very much wants to hear what the blue man thinks. He’s impressed! He doesn’t talk that much—not that, realistically, FN-2187 has a good yardstick to compare him to—but he’s never shy with praise. FN-2187’s been practicing for a month now, and Phasma is currently being very critical, and Slip has been angry with him so he didn’t even get a ‘good morning’ today.

This is not giving up, he decides, and jogs over to his friend. 

“Very well done,” the blue man tells him as FN-2187 tears off his helmet and wipes the sweat off his face. “A well-designed exercise. It’s a passable simulation of moving targets, even if it does not capture their unpredictability. And you have grown strong in the Force.”

FN-2187 preens.

“Your accuracy is good. Two-hundred-and-eighty-one bolts have struck true. You have missed one shot, the one you aimed behind your back.” He’d taken that one one-handedly, FN-2187 remembers. It’s to be expected, his blaster wasn’t really designed for that.

“Did the—did the Jedi ever do this?”

“Blasters?” The blue man laughs, softly. “No. It’s remarkably similar to a youngling exercise, what you’re doing, but that was about deflecting shots with a lightsaber. A ‘more civilized’ weapon. My old master, you wouldn’t have caught him dead with a blaster.”

“So you—”

“My life was saved by my wife and her blaster many times, but they’re very easy to deflect if you know what you’re doing. Not that you needed to do that, all the time,” the blue man says. “Droids are easy, and in the Empire, stormtroopers were renowned for their poor marksmanship. A predictable—and deliberate—failing. The standards were woefully inadequate. Although your Order has corrected that somewhat, with their… very extended training.” (With the child kidnapping, he is not saying.)

FN-2187 bristles. He knows the reputation of stormtroopers, catches snatches of it whenever some Star Destroyer’s bridge crew stop by the base, hears it in every action of Kylo Ren. He knows what he is. Cannon fodder. He wants to be good, but they give him a helmet and a blaster and put him on the ground, and then they judge him for being a grunt. He wants to be good, but it’s not like he has a choice. If the only thing they give him to be is a stormtrooper—then he will have to be the best stormtrooper there is.

The blue man already looks guilty, though, so he lets it go.

“Deflecting blaster bolts?” he asks instead.

“I can show you,” the blue man replies immediately.

“I don’t have a lightsaber—”

“Well observed, young one.” The blue man smirks. “It would not be worth the risk to procure one at this point in time, moreover. But you don’t need a lightsaber. It is harder this way, yes, but it can be done. You would not be able to do it correctly on the first try, and I can’t fire your blaster, but you can try it on me. We’re… connected, right now, young one, so you should get an impression how it feels.”

“Would that work?”

“Energy is sometimes different.” The blue man shrugs. “And even if I cannot affect the blast, you would feel the shape of my thoughts.”

FN-2187 nods.

He raises his blaster, straight at the blue man. Finger on the trigger. He doesn’t need the targeting screen on his visor, doesn’t usually need it anyway, and this is very short-range. The blue man is barely five feet away from him, closer even to the nuzzle of the blaster, three feet of distance at most. His hands on his hip, body turned towards FN-2187. Toward the blaster. Smiling loosely—a blast to the brain, skull cracked open, blood and hair and brain matter running down what’s left of his head, dropping down—FN-2187’s arm is locked straight, the nuzzle is three feet from his head, he hasn’t done anything, _please don’t kill me_ , a Twi’lek woman screams and FN-2187 can’t and the simulation shuts down, Zeroes laughs—

FN-2187 is on the ground.

The blue man’s left hand is in his hair, stroking softly, the other attempting to wipe the vomit off FN-2187’s chestplate and passing through it.

“I would have been able to deflect it, child,” he whispers ruefully.

He is too kind, FN-2187 thinks, to mention that _this_ is exactly what FN-2187 is training for.

**Author's Note:**

> Why does Word autocorrect lightsaber to lightsabre? (Okay, I just googled it, apparently it's also correct and the UK spelling?)
> 
> Any inaccuracies regarding force use are obviously my fault because I'm not that interested in th EU except for stuff that promises Vader body horror (or lets me laugh at hypermasculinity, thank u Maul Lockdown)
> 
> Thank you so much for reading and commenting :)


End file.
